The Past of an Angel
by LonelyInACrowd
Summary: A story of two seniors in high school who look for the most important thing in life- love. They meet and the worlds they once knew shatter. Will David learn the meaning of love? And will Melanie ever be able to love again?


RING. RING. RING. RING.

I poke my head up from underneath my pillow: 6:00 a.m.

Another day.

I roll over onto my back in my uncomfortable bed. I stare at my white ceiling and just let my mind blank out as the alarm keeps ringing in the background. I try to remember what I dreamt of last night but I can't. So I let my mind wander to what I spend most of my days thinking about. I start to think about what should be happening right now.

My father, James Dorset, should be in the kitchen right now making me an oatmeal and melon breakfast. He should be barging in any second, a major violation of my privacy, and shake me until I get out of bed. My father should be here for my graduation in the spring. My father should be alive.

I sigh inwardly. This conversation with myself has been going on for eighteen months now. Ever since it happened.

When I started high school, my father had become more… moody. He would go out by himself sometimes to be alone and would be gone for sometimes hours on end. I knew that was because of me. I know that I reminded him of my mom. From the few pictures he has of her in the apartment, I could tell that every aspect of my heart-shaped face was exactly like hers. We have the same wavy brown hair. We both had the same full lips and small pinched nose. But I got my emerald green eyes from my father. Sometimes in the reflection of his eyes I see the picture of my mother smiling back at him.

I was six when she left him. Dad said that she just left one morning without saying goodbye or looking back. I don't know what's happened to her since then. She didn't even come back to sign the divorce papers. It was like my father broke in half when she left. Even at that young age I could tell that something was wrong. But my father was like a light switch. He would turn on his happy everything-is-all-right face when I was around. But once when I couldn't sleep at night, I saw him in his bedroom crying softly to himself.

He became so depressed that he ended up killing himself on a snowy day in February of my sophomore year. Ever since then I've been living on my own in this three room apartment.

I sit up and pull the crisp white comforter around my body. I've had to do a lot of growing up since then. I have a job at the local library part-time where I get to lose myself in books and get paid for it. The rest of my time I spend doing homework so that I can get a scholarship for college. There's no way I could pay for it myself.

But it's not like I have been alone this entire time. I have a good friend named Esther. How do you describe Esther? She's quite… dark. She likes to keep to herself rather than having an actual social life. I met her one day when I was walking through the park nearby a few years before it happened. She was by herself, like usual, but was holding something in her arms and somewhat cooing at it softly. I walked up to her straight out of the blue. She was holding an injured bird. Its wing was broken and bloodied. You could tell it only had a few short moments left to live. It had lost too much blood. When she looked up at me, she had such pain in her dark grey eyes that I felt like letting my tears flow.

That was the first time I met her and since then we've been truly close.

I looked at the clock again. It was 6:34. I covered my eyes with my left hand and brushed it through my knotted hair. I pulled myself out of the refuge of my bed and slid across my carpeted floor into the cold tile of my bathroom. Looking in the mirror, the girl stared back. She had uneasy eyes and shoulders stooped from worry.

I turned around and turned the shower to its highest heat. The room became steamy hiding my reflection. Once it got hot enough, I stripped down and stepped into the scalding heat. It cleansed my mind from the worried thoughts.

After I let the water soak me thoroughly, I stepped out and wrapped myself with a towel. I wrung out my hair as I walked over to my dresser and concentrated on the colors and feel of my shirts. I picked out a brown striped sweater with bell sleeves and pulled it on top of my plain nude colored bra. I found a dirty pair of jeans in my hamper and walked into the kitchen of my apartment grabbing my bag hurrying out the door.

I checked my watch again. It was 7:23. Work started at 8:00. I had enough time to stop and grab a coffee at the shop Esther worked at.

The sky gave off a faint glow as the sun was peaking over the treetops outside my apartment. The door to apartment 389 clicked closed before I headed down a flight of stairs into the green outdoors of Maine. To the right of me there was an army of trees seen for miles across the valleys. You could hear the sound of a creek gurgling and a random car driving by on the road to my left.

I dug into my bag as I walked over to my blue 2003 Smart 1 Litre. I unlocked the car and hopped in turning the local news radio station on to see if anything interesting was going on in the world on this Thursday morning. Nothing much was happening, as usual, only a burglary a few towns over. I turned the radio off before curving out into the lonely street. As I rolled along at 45 miles per hour, I rolled down the windows letting the cool almost autumn air surround me.

The one thing about Maine that you could really get to love is the smell of the outdoors. It's just so fresh. Plus the quiet that seems to follow you everywhere. Everything is just so peaceful. But sometimes all the peace and quiet can make you go crazy. Hopefully today would be different. Maybe something new and exciting would pop into my dull life. After almost two years of being alone, I was ready for an adventure.  
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The chimes on the door to Jitters, the coffee shop I worked at, rang as I started to read the eleventh chapter of one of my favorite books, Les Misérables. Even though I've read the book several times, I was irritated at whoever came into the almost empty shop. Les Misérables was an all time classic that I don't like to put down. So I just ignored the person who walked in until they were standing right in front of me ready for me to take their order.

I took my time reading until the end of the paragraph and carefully placing my bookmark in its spine. I looked up slowly making sure to give the customers a menacing glare. It fit perfectly to see that the person standing in front of me was David Grey, the most annoying boy in my entire school. He was the boy who was especially popular and did stupid things for attention. He wasn't very good looking but girls liked him because he was funny and rich. Though over the summer his short brown hair grew out a little bit and was styled. His face seemed to be more chiseled and the muscles on his arms were more defined.

He looked at me for a second like he might have known me but brushed it aside. He said in a resonant voice, "One black coffee." Then he flipped open his cell phone as someone called him. He may have looked different but he was the same old jerk. I started to make his order as he talked on the phone when Melanie walked in making the door chime. She looked like she was in her far off world again. I ignored David's order and started on Melanie's usual: a caramel latte. "Hey, Mel," I said as I went to the espresso machine and poured some espresso out. When I said this, David looked up and finally saw Melanie. It seemed more like he was shocked to see her. He kept staring at her as she walked up to the counter. She said in her dreamy voice, "Hey Esther. Do you want to watch a movie tonight? I think the movie store has a new horror flick." I smiled. She knew me too well.

"Meet you at your house at six," I replied handing her the coffee. She took it and gave me a smile then walked out of the shop without a second glance. I looked at David before turning around and finishing his order. And what was weird was that he was still staring at the door.

"Ogling much?" I said sarcastically. He looked at me for a good ten seconds before speaking into his cell phone again, "Yeah I'm still here. I'll meet you there in five minutes. I was just about to leave anyways." Then he shut his phone and walked out of the shop. I sat down in my chair again and picked up Les Misérables. Yep, he was the same old jerk.  
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Walking with India down a long dirt road is one of my favorite past times. And that's exactly what I am doing right now. The usually cool air clears my head and I can finally think right. The trees towering around me always make me feel like I'm hidden from the rest of the world until a lonesome car goes by. Sometimes I walk for miles on end and just think. Most of the time I think about love, or rather the love I don't receive.

I was born into an extremely wealthy family. You may think that we have it all. That I'm so lucky because of all the useless material things I have. But I've never been loved. My father and mother are always away on business trips. When I come home every day, it's an empty house. When they are home, they ignore me completely. I was raised by my nanny who I found out was arrested a few years back for using drugs.

That probably explains why I'm so fucked up. All I ever do is a cry for attention. I'm the most pathetic bastard you would probably ever meet. From pranks to drinking to partying to drugs. You name it, I've done it all.

But surprisingly enough, I'm quite popular with my peers because of the crazy things I do. I guess everyone loves a wild child. But this isn't what I really am. I would think that I'm a lot deeper than that. That I actually have a purpose to life than to go out on Friday nights and come home on Sunday mornings.

I turned to India and said, "So what do you think of me? Am I just what everyone else thinks I am?" She turned her long nose towards me and sniffed. I'll take that as a no. Sometimes my golden retriever India can be the most knowledgeable person I can turn to. I turned to face forwards again. I blew some air out in front of me and watched as it turned into a cloud.

Writing poetry is a secret passion of mine. I'm inspired by everything around me like the deer in the trees to my right who was grazing. Or by a boy sitting in my trigonometry class sitting two rows in front of me doodling in his notebook. When I feel like it, I go to a poetry club in the nearby town and perform my poems. I've been offered to be paid for it but I don't need the money so I just do it for free. But if anyone would happen to find my book of poems, it would be a death sentence for them. Some poems in that book are so personal that it would be like that person was invading my mind instead of some beat up college ruled notebook.

But regardless I have another year in high school left. One more year until I never have to see my parents again. Until I can leave this entire life behind me and become something else. Though I don't know what that is. I chuckled softly to myself. Maybe I could do something idiotic and boring like get a degree in biotechnology.

Through the gaps in the trees surrounding me I could see pink sunlight peak through. So I turned around and whistled for India to walk back down the same road we had taken. It's going to take a long while to get back.

I thought again about the upcoming school year. It will be the same routine thing. Class after class. Party after party. Day after day. I looked up at the orange-pink sky above me and whisper, "I hope that something worthwhile will come out of this year."  
**  
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**Okay so this is my first attempted novel. Sorry this chapter is so short. I really needed to get some information pumped into you before I can start the plot line... but there's gonna be a couple more chapters like this. You may seem to think that you know the characters in the story now but you have much more to learn. And to copy my good friend Neesha, I'm gonna dedicate each chapter to a song. This chapter is dedicated to At the Beginning from the movie Anastasia. I don't usually listen to things like this but it kinda fits this? Idk. **

**Also to get this out of the way: I officialy OWN these characters. I made them from my amazing imagination and no one is allowed to use them without my content. Also I apologize for all typos or swears or incorrect terms or whatever. You can complain to me and I'll change it until you're satisfied. **

**Oh and about updating... I take a very long time to write. Sooo don't get your hopes up that I will update every week. Probably if you're lucky once a month. I'm not putting myself on a time limit so it could take months. Sorry folks!**

**Love always, LIAC  
**


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